God Is White

God Is White, originally uploaded by firoze shakir photographerno1.

As a very young child , call it the deformity of my growth ,I always felt God was white, and I carried on with this belief , as the Primary school where I studied was called Private European School, at Colaba had European teachers early 50's ..Mrs E Lester, Miss June , Miss Marjorie.

My childhood friend Keith Kangas mother Gewndolyn was as white as albaster and so was his grand mother whom we called Granny.They were European setlers from Sri Lanka , and Keiths mom married Dossabhai Kanga of New Era Printing press a Parsi magnate.

My teachings on religion were marred by a Sunni Mullah who came to teach us Arabic but enjoyed pinching and caning me ..so it was Granny who fed me about God and Paradise through her Jehovah Witness eyes.

Rivers of honey and milk..I was taken to Cuffe Parade to be baptized as one of them and it began to rain heavily, my baptism was aborted ...or had the White God baptized me I wont know ..till I meet him face to face.

I worked later in life at Burlingtons at the Taj Mahal hotel,and I still felt God must be white..as my bosses were white Punjabis.. and my work surroundings was all white .. foreigners of all hues ..I did not mingle much with the colored race.. forgive me.

Later I fell into the arms of the cybernet , a whisker away from marrying an American woman and this aberration or indecisive moment had me confused for just a short moment I thought god might be an Inuit Indian instead of White.

Alaska is a White Mans paradise too..


And this poem is inspired by my visit to Laurents photostream..

god is white
heaven is white
with colored souls burning
the other side of midnight
bound by color in ethereal light
lucky the man without eyesight
lucky the demented
who does not have to know
wrong from right
yes in my world
god is white
black man born
to serve him
day and night
no chilled beers
after the fight
crawling brawling
white is might
gates of heaven
rights of admission
to the colored denied
hell is the other alternative
falling from a great height
poetic pause some respite

All my pictures are shot by my shop help, who knows nothing about cameras and would not know the difference between his butt and his elbow, last evening I handed him my camera with the heavy Nikon 80/200 AF ED 2.8 lens attached , I told him to shoot me, he normally shoots me with a wide..this was the outcome a picture that gave birth to a poem..after visiting Laurent's post on Chirstophe Heaven is White lyrics of a French song..